Data on rural-urban differences in access to telecommunications technology suggest that the U.S. "digital divide" is diminishing. However, major shortcomings in telecommunications infrastructure persist in rural America, and more serious barriers to rural development are related to human capital shortages. These may be resolved in some…

Comprehension of the current condition of rural education is essential to national education policy and program considerations, yet rural schools go unnoticed at the federal level because of a paucity of national rural data. The changing nature of rural population, the national mandate for equal educational opportunity, and the need for a timely…